The Librarians (2014)

The series can be described as a combination of Indiana Jones (or rather The Young Indiana Jones), MacGyver and Doctor Who/Torchwood. It’s fun and filled with action. The underlying idea is fascinating – a magical library that is more or less infiitely big, that you can reach from more than one place (The Annex), but also a portal that opens just about anywhere so the Librarian can get where the magical action is.

The first episode starts with a woman, Eve Baird, working for an antiterrorist unit who runs into a mysterious excentrically dressed man who is expert in disarming traps (but not the usual kind of bomb trap). She is puzzled but impressed. Soon she receives a mysterious invitation to begin work at the Metropolitan library and finds out about the huge underground library. However, the Librarian (at that time there’s only one) isn’t at all happy to see her. He claims to be able to get by very well without a Guardian (that is the Librarian’s body guard). Circumstances move fast though and Eve (the Guardian) and Flynn (the Librarian) are pulled into a complicated case, fighting a group of ninja warriors. It seems someone is killing off Librarian candidates. Although traditionally there’s only ever been one Librarian and one Guiardian it seems now there’s need for more.

From the second episode there are three Librarians-in-training, protected by the Guardian and a mysterious older man, Jenkins, who seems to be living in the Annex (a sort of add-on to the Library), doing research and keeping an eye on the team of amateurish future Librarians. There’s young amoral thief Exekiel Jones, Cassandra Cillian who is a genius rather like Sherlock, but unfortunately she owes her genius to a tumor in her brain and finally a sort of cowboy who is a genius too – and extremely well educated in archaeology, history and languages.

Like I said, this is a fun, action filled series, with all kinds of supernatural and magical enemies, but I can’t help wishing there was more depth. If they’d only taken the time to write more ‘serious’ and deep episodes I would have been happier. It feels a little llike a YA series with rather hurried plots. Some episodes are downright annoying like the one about Santa, who insists on referring ot himself in the third person. Others, are far more interesting, like one about a town where fairy tales come to life, with dangerous consequences.

So far I’ve seen one season, but apparently there will be another, so at least that’s good. I don’t think I’ll be writing any fan fiction based on this series, but it’s definitely good enough to distract you from your life for a while.